


Smoke in the Sky

by Kariliah



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Character Death, Gen, Leave Out All The Rest, Science Fiction, except nothing is fine, fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariliah/pseuds/Kariliah
Summary: “What you two are proposing could be the end of the world as we know it.”Being forced to leave their loved ones behind on a world that is dying, six scientists agree to connect man and machine in a last desperate attempt to save humankind. As things get out of hand however, they’re suddenly forced to face the consequences of their actions and the monster they have created…
Kudos: 6





	1. Good intentions and bad plans

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by fine, Leave out all the Rest and all the lovely people on twitter, especially this tweet that I'll just paste below since I have no idea how else to do it:  
> https://twitter.com/bombalurina03/status/1201933789901082624
> 
> I apologize for any errors that are still in the text and hope you enjoy it!

“Everything is gonna be fine!”, Chester assured his friend that he felt was about to jump up from the seat as soon as soon as he’d shared his ideas with his five friends and colleagues. It certainly wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting from the man that usually made a point in keeping his critique as formal as possible and it stung to see him frown upon the project he’d put so much effort into. Still, he tried to weaken his words as he looked at Mike. “We don’t have to do it.”

“There’s no way this is even possible”, the dark-haired man considered, rather saying his thoughts out loud than talking to the group sitting around the table in the only room on the ship that wasn’t meant for work or sleep but solely as a place for them to hang out together. “No fucking way.”

“It’s not impossible, you know.” Even though he knew Mike didn’t mean it that way, Chester still felt the sour aftertaste the words left behind as he leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms and glancing at Brad in hope for help. After all, this hadn’t been his project alone. 

“Chester’s right.” Right from when the idea had first crossed his mind, he’d known that Mike would be the hardest one to convince. Dave and Joe seemed intrigued by it and even though Rob was his reserved self, not letting them see behind his mask before he was a hundred percent certain of his opinion, he at least wouldn’t dismiss Chester’s thoughts as crazy. “With all that I know, it should be possible for us to find a way to make it happen.”

“What you two are proposing”, as if his aversion hadn’t been apparent enough already, Mike stood up, placing his hands on the table and leaning forward, almost like a teacher chiding his disobedient students, “could be the end of the world as we know it.”

“Says the captain of the spaceship that’s travelling to our new homeworld.” It was neither the place of the time for it, but Dave couldn’t help but try to lighten the mood a bit. After three months stuck in a small pot floating through the emptiness of space, fights were bound to happen even with them not wanting to make their time onboard even less enjoyable. “Let Brad and Chester at least present their entire idea before you say no to it”, he opted to ignore the annoyed glance Mike was shooting at him.

“Fine”, the captain of the ship mumbled and sat back down, signaling the two scientists with a wave of his hand to go on with their presentation. 

“Thank you, Dave.” Chester quickly nodded at him before sorting the sentences in his mind once more, knowing that this might be their only chance to convince Mike. And even though he didn’t like it, if the captain of their troupe was against it, the project wasn’t going to happen. And not only because he needed some of Mike’s expertise for it. “Right now, we have an estimated 11.3 billion people living on earth, a number that is not going to chance significantly within the next years. Even with the high mortality rate now that the war is raging again, it’s unlikely the population will drop below 10 billion anytime soon.”

“That is however”, Brad chimed in, slowly stroking his beard before looking Mike straight in the eye to maximize the impact of his words, regardless of them being old news, “until the ecosystem collapses, and we’ll face the downfall of humankind. Considering the path earth is currently headed on, with the government sharing their plans of further adding aerosols to the Atmosphere in the hope to reverse some of the damage already done, this day will come sooner than later. And we simply do not have the resources to get everyone to Ross 128 b in time. Billions will perish, but Bennington and I might have found a way to prevent it.”

“Not by creating Frankenstein’s monster.” Even with the knowledge that pouting was childish and didn’t have a place aboard the ship, let alone during a conference that might decide the fate of their loved ones and everyone else they’d left behind, Mike still had a hard time keeping his criticism somewhat professional. Not that he didn’t acknowledge the work Chester and Brad had put into developing their idea into something that could become reality in the not so distant future, but his guts told him to better not further explore the possibilities it held.

“We weren’t planning on stitching bodies together, Shinoda!”, was it now the programmers turn to lose his temper and slam his hands against the table, the bright flames wrapped around his wrist a stark contrast to the white and grey that made up most of the ship and grew a little less colorful with every passing day. “Look, Delson and I, we have the knowledge and the means to enhance the abilities of human beings, allowing them to gain full control over their surroundings. That way we could clean up the planet and give us all a fresh start. But we need your help to link the pieces together.”

“We know it sounds disconcerting at first, but this isn’t something we thought up while being bored in space!” Brad started a final attempt to persuade their friend, already knowing it would be in vain. Mike had made up his mind the second Chester had first taken the word cyborg into his mouth and frankly, he couldn’t blame him. “We are aware of the uncertainties that come with it but for all we know, the worst thing that could happen is nothing at all.”

“The last time someone said that they decided to put a shitload of chemicals into the Atmosphere and look what happened!” They all knew the speech Mike was referring to, having heard and seen it countless times from when they were little children, too young to yet understand the full extent of it and the consequences that followed, to the day they kissed their loved ones goodbye and stepped aboard the ship taking them into the unknown. “Look where that took us!”

“Fine!” With one final disappointed look at the captain, Chester stormed off, leaving his five friends and an uncomfortable silence behind, each of them trying to figure out what to say without possibly making the situation worse.

“I’ll go find him”, Brad sighed after a long moment, taking his datapad with him and waving in the direction of the engine room, the place they knew Chester usually went to when he needed a moment for himself to recollect his thoughts.

“I didn’t mean to be that harsh, you know.” Knowing Chester for years and having worked with him on countless projects, Mike was used to them pointing out flaws in each other’s thought process. After all, this was the way science worked and so far, it had always been their way to success, earning them a spot amongst the top scientists in America. This time however, things were a little different, he thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes in frustration before turning to the rest of the crew. “But this is a disaster bound to happen.”


	2. Afloat

“Fuck you, Mike!” Chester wished there was a door to slam shut behind him as the quiet hissing he heard as the automatic door closed wasn’t satisfying at all since he wanted the whole crew to know just how mad he was. At his friend that refused to help him, at all the people that had put them in this peculiar situation in first place. At Brad for not being able to change Mike’s mind, at the others for not siding with him. At himself for too many reasons to name.  
And here he was again, alone in the engine room, only surrounded by some of the machines his life currently depended on. The noise they made was nothing more than a faint ringing in his ears which reminded him a bit of the wind on a warm summer evening, as he crouched down on the narrow piece of metal that served as a path through the room, spanning from one end to the other and extending to all sides, and waited for the holograms to awaken before him.  
The concept he had developed with Brad was groundbreaking in his eyes and in between all the formulas, sketches and paragraphs that were now floating around him he’d hoped to have found a solution for the world’s problems. The problems they were currently running from. Scientist or not, the fact that he had to leave a dying planet behind was slowly but surely tearing him apart. And now that the thing he'd been working on for so long, had put so much hope into, even dared to call his masterpiece in silence, wouldn’t be completed, he felt like a coward for not staying behind with the rest of the world.  
When he’d first gotten the letter asking him to join the program that gave some of the most promising scientists the chance to help create a new start for humanity, he’d been running excitedly through the University that employed him, making sure to show the message to his five best friends. And when it became more and more obvious in the weeks that followed that they would be able to form a team and go on the mission together his excitement had grown beyond anything he’d ever felt before. After all, this was what they’d been dreaming of ever since they’d shared a little apartment, this was what had always given them the strength to study just a little more, to work just a little harder than the rest.

“Chester?” And now he was back on the ground, hovering slightly above the bottom on the narrow path with no railing to stop him from falling if he leaned over the edge. “I knew you’d be here.”  
“Leave me alone.” From the day they first stepped aboard the spaceship as part of their preparation about a year ago, it was the engine room that had drawn him in as if there was an invisible force pulling him towards it. And as soon as they’d left everything they’d known behind, it had become his refuge. A place to think when he needed quiet to hold on to ideas that had flashed through his mind. A place to cry when the heartache he felt over not having his family with him became almost unbearable. A place to find himself again when he felt like he’d been lost between the stars.  
“Hey buddy.” Brad sat down next to him, the way he’d done it countless times when they had been trying to get their ideas to turn into something that could one day become reality. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”  
“He didn’t even try to act like he doesn’t hate it”, he grumbled before trying hard to compose himself and give Brad the best explanation as to why he was so upset that he was able to come up with. “You know, I’ve worked with this guy on so many projects and no matter how stupid my ideas sounded at first, we always found a way to make them work. And the same for Mike’s ideas. We found the flaws in the other’s way of thinking and pointed them out, yes, but we never treated each other like shit!”  
“He didn’t-”  
“Yes, he did!”, he snapped. “Mike knows damn well how to formulate criticism, but he chose to call us idiots!”  
“Calm down!” Brad lifted his hands in an attempt to keep his friend from getting even angrier as he felt like sitting next to a bomb that was ready to blow up. “We know it’ll work, that’s enough for now, okay?”  
“Except it’s not going to without Shinoda’s help.” Hands balled into fists, he slammed them against the ground before getting up, unable to sit still any longer. “You know how the human part works and I can do the programming and set up most of the technical parts, but we need Mike to get those to work together and you know that!”  
“Maybe we can ask Dave for help.” Brad thoughtfully stroked his beard, the slow and steady movements a strong contrast to Chester pacing up and down the blank.  
“When it comes to building the thing, yes.” As the engineer specializing on space technology he was used to coming up with creative and long-lasting solutions, which made him the perfect companion for their journey. After all, he was the one who kept the spaceship from falling apart. “Still, Mike is our man. The knowledge he has about transferring data on tiny scales is crucial for us.” 

“You know what?”, Brad suggested, now knowing what else to do. “Let’s just give it some time. We’re stuck in space anyways for another what? Six months?”  
“I was hoping we could go straight into developing it as soon as we’ve landed.” When Chester frowned Brad had no other choice but to silently agree with his friend. Dying or not, the Earth was their home and if there was a way to return to it and save it, he would rather do it sooner than later. Especially with everyone that mattered to him, apart from his five best friends, still stuck there. And thus, he understood the frustration that Chester was feeling when he finally calmed a bit and sat back next to him, still growling as he spoke. “It feels like we are wasting time that we don’t have!”  
“Like I said, we are stuck here and the only thing we’re supposed to do right now is stay alive until we reach Ross 128 b.” Ever since people had started flying towards the stars, death had been their companion. From navigating through the unknown in hope of not crashing into something to stepping onto planets that could potentially kill someone within the blink of an eye, the risks were almost too many to list. But even though they’d grown up with the news filled with the names and faces of those brave people that had given their life for a greater cause, the fascination for space never stopped. “Besides, we can still go through everything once more and who knows? Maybe we do find another way after all.”  
“I don’t think there is another way to control your surroundings.” Seeing Chester’s focus shift from being angry at Mike to the hologram allowed Brad to relax at least a bit as it now seemed unlikely that there would be any serious fight on board this day. “Unless we discover an invisible force that holds the universe together or some shit like that, this is the best idea.”

“You know what?” Brad stared at the image in front of him a moment longer before turning to Chester who looked at him curiously, already holding the device in his hands that would allow them to add more notes to the hologram. “The things that scares Mike isn’t that we want to use and manipulate the already existing field of waves caused by all kind of transmitters in order to hopefully clean up the atmosphere-”  
“But that we want to implant that power into a human being!” As if he’d been stung by something, Chester jumped up again, this time with a huge grin on his face as he pointed at his friend. “Brad, you are a genius!”  
“I know.” If there was one thing Brad wasn’t lacking, it was confidence in his talents. A character trait Chester certainly envied at times, as he usually felt like he didn’t have the skills he needed in order to complete a task given to him. Even now, part of him still wasn’t convinced he was the right person to be sent to another planet. “What if we adapt it, then show it to Mike again, get him to help us and use the knowledge we get this way to work on the device that connects man and machine in secret?”  
Even though Brad knew it was wrong to trick one of his oldest friends into working on something that he fundamentally disagreed with, it was the only choice he saw left for them. And considering how clever Mike was, he would probably figure it out as soon as they asked him anyways.  
“Now that is a plan that could go terribly wrong.” They could only hope that this idea wasn’t met with resistance as well. “I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing in English feels pretty scary to be honest.


	3. Prisoner Bourdon?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating clearly isn't my strength. Apart from that, I'd like to apologize for any mistakes in this chapter and hope you enjoy reading.

“I hope Chester’s okay”, Dave frowned, looking in the direction of the door Brad had just left through to go look for their friend.  
“Probably not.” The little shrug earned Rob a cold look from Mike who subsequently turned his back on them, taking a moment to regain his composure. And when he was facing them again, he acted as if nothing had happened a few minutes earlier. As if he hadn’t just deeply hurt his best friend. Only the two lines between his eyebrows that had grown a little deeper were an indicator of his sorrow.

“Reports on the shuttle?”  
“I made dinner!” In an attempt to lighten the mood a bit and make the frown on Mike’s face fade away, Rob raised his hand like a preschooler and excitedly pointed in the direction of their little kitchen-corner. “If you guys could do me a favor, please tell me if the carrots taste any differently. I tried this new technique to ma-“  
“Did you pee on them?” Pretending to gag, Joe looked at his friends assembled around the table and was glad to see them shaking their heads at his bad joke but laughing, nonetheless.  
“Speaking of it”, for once even serious Rob cracked a little smile as Dave started speaking, while Shinoda just sighed with a wave of his hand.  
“Here we go again.”  
“The water recycling system wasn’t bugging the other day, someone probably just crashed against it and a cable got a little loose.” With their flight path not being a straight line, accidents like this were prone to happen and nothing out of the ordinary. That, of course, hadn’t stopped them from being _a little_ concerned over the red warning light that had refused to stop glowing even after being smacked multiple times. “But I could fix that in like five minutes. So, don’t you worry, we won’t run out of water anytime soon and can produce enough _fertilizer_ for Rob’s plants to grow.”  
“You’re gross!” The biologist shook his head, having given up on explaining his friend the difference between using Nitrogen, a byproduct of their water recycling system, to aid the growth of his plants and peeing on them. Besides, Dave’s constant jokes were keeping him entertained while he tried to figure out ways to make their food grow faster or at least stay alive until it was big enough to be turned into dinner. Something he’d already done when they’d all lived together, earning him the honorary title of _Plant Dad_.  
“That’s why you’re responsible for the plants and I just maintain your little suns.” Dave returned with a couple plates, forks and the pan filled with food he’d found in the oven. “Remember the time our neighbors got a glimpse into your room?”

“Man! I’ve never been more confused than when the cops showed up the next morning!” As a plate was placed in front of him, Mike finally sat back down and seemed to relax a bit, reminiscing about the weird things that happened during their college time.  
“Don’t remind me!” With a sigh, Rob rested his head on the table, hoping his friends wouldn’t notice that the memories of what he considered a low point in his life, still made him blush unlike anything else.  
“Dude, I honestly didn’t think they would take you to the police station and throw you into jail for it!” It wasn’t necessary for him to look at Mike to see his smile grow wider with every word before he eventually burst out into laughter, leaving it to Dave to continue the embarrassing story.  
“To be fair, your room really looked like you were growing _plants_ ”, he raised his hands to put the word in quotation marks by drawing them into the air, “to sell them as drugs.”  
“I’m a biologist!”, Rob complained and briefly lifted his head to underline his words with a scowl, much to the amusement of his friends who were at least eating their dinner without complaints and seemed to be in an overall better mood. Unlike him, who begged the spaceship to fall apart and suck him into infinity. Even though part of him could laugh about the whole disaster nowadays, another part of him still cringed every time it was brought up. Which was approximately once a year, and certainly more often when they were bored like they were right now.  
“You made your own pills out of leaves and whatever else you put in there!” Looking back, that probably hadn’t been the brightest ideas he’d ever had, especially with Joe phrasing it like that. It did indeed make him sound a little bit crazy, something he only occasionally consider himself to be. “They all tasted disgusting though.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” His head snapped back up from the table as he was trying to process the information that was new to him. “You _ate_ them?”  
“What else was I supposed to do? Stick them up my butt?”  
“Never mind.” At least he now knew where the missing ones had gone to and that it hadn’t been Brad who’d taken them like he’d suspected. After all, his friend had sometimes asked him for his latest creations to test them on his unsuspecting fellow students. Learning a lot from the reports (and complaints) that had come back to him, he’d never dared to scold Brad for taking the pills without asking first.  
“What were you doing with them anyways?” Dave pointed at him with the fork. Usually they skipped the technical side of his endeavors and jumped straight to the part where they had to bail him out, meaning this was a more than welcome opportunity to remind his friends once more that he wasn’t the head of the local Mafia.  
“Trying to cure illnesses, as one does?” Not that he was especially successful with it as he didn’t have access to all the nice stuff the pharmacy students got for their experiments. Except from that time he was dating one of them, and even though he’d remained loose friends with the girl, she hadn’t agreed on supplying him with chemicals. And thus, he had to rely on his beloved plants to _cure_ everyone that was unlucky enough to have classes with Bradford Delson.  
“Wasn’t _Brad_ the med student?”, Dave thought out loud. “I don’t remember you taking pharmacy classes.”  
“I borrowed some of his books.” Some of which were still in his possession, another reason why he’d never dared to talk about the missing pills. “And in case you forgot-“  
“If it wasn’t about the brain, he only studied the topic to maintain his grade average.” Dave completed his sentence and shook his head. During exam season when all six inhabitants of the flat had been stressing out and living on coffee and four hours of sleep (or less if your name was Mike Shinoda), Brad had usually been the one who remained the calmest and still got the best grades. “Your room still looked like a drug lab.”  
“That’s what the cops said!” Mike’s giggles could probably be heard in the entire spaceship while the feeling of discomfort creeped back into Rob’s body. And the others agreeing with the captain certainly didn’t help.  
“Looking back at it now, it really did.”

“And it certainly didn’t help that you suggested that they should try the pills.” Even now that Dave pointed it out, Rob couldn’t think of anything else he could’ve told them to avoid getting arrested. After all, tasting the ingredients would’ve told them instantly that he was essentially mixing a fancy tea together and stuffed it into a pill.  
“I can still see the shock on their faces! So funny!”  
“It was all plant based!” Which had been, _surprise, surprise_ , the outcome of the investigations and the charges against him had been dropped a few days after the guys had put all their spare money together to get him out of jail after the most uncomfortable night of his life. “And legal. I wasn’t in High School anymore. Anyways.” Now that the others had almost finished eating, there were more important things to talk about. “How do you like my new creation?”

“The carrots?”  
“Mm-hmm. Maybe you should try them without the sauce”, he suggested since he knew how much the others loved his self-made sauces. That sadly also meant that everything else he cooked was usually getting drenched in it, which lowkey destroyed the effort he’d put into the creation of the dish.  
“A lot better than the last ones.”  
“Yeah, sorry buddy, but those were disgusting.” Mike frowned before patting Rob on the shoulder, stating once again what he’d already known since the others had missed no chance to tell him how tasteless they were. Which on one hand caused him to take better care of plants he’d deemed indestructible, but on the other hand had also fueled his insecurities.  
“I know, I know. Probably because I made them grow too fast, but I was scared we’d run out of food and be forced to touch the emergency supplies too early. After all, I never know if there are any pests aboard and if-“  
“Bourdie, calm down, everything will be fine!”, Mike interrupted him just as the door opened and the owner of the most impressive hair aboard walked back in. “And if everything goes wrong, we can still grow mushrooms from Brad’s socks.”  
“Hey!” Since it was hard to be mad at anyone that gave him food, Brad decided against offering his socks for scientific experiments in case Rob managed to beat him at one of the board games. Which was even more unlikely than them ever setting a foot on planet Earth again.  
“Just saying.” Mike shrugged before the smile vanished from his face and he became the captain again. “Anyways, back to business.”  
“Everything’s working, we won’t starve anytime soon and I’m on nightshift”, Joe counted on his fingers, rolling his eyes at the fact that they still had to maintain somewhat of a daily rhythm even though their watches were the only things that gave them any sense of day and night ,”so you can all go to bed.”  
“Right.” Awkwardly collecting the plates and placing them in their dishwasher, Mike didn’t dare to look his friends in the eyes. Especially not Brad, who was munching his dinner and staring daggers at him. “I’ll just stay here and wash the dishes, and, you know.”

“Good luck.” After a couple of minutes that he and Brad had spent in tense silence, neither of them knowing what to say, and with Mike pretending to be busy, wiping the kitchen counter clean for the tenth time within the short time span, his friend final left him alone as well.  
“Thank you.” Which meant that all he could do was sit around and wait, not daring to walk up to Chester himself.


	4. Michael knows best

Alone again. Letting out a deep sigh, Mike sat back down for a bit before he decided that he was currently too restless to stay still. Thus, he paced up and down the room, thinking about his crewmates once more. They were his friends first and foremost, but he couldn’t help feeling like him being assigned Captain of the ship started to push them away from him. Especially now, that Chester was clearly upset because of what Mike had said.  
With every passing second Mike grew more worried but he knew that he couldn’t go look for his friend as it would result in Chester telling him to stop treating him like a child. And even though he understood that sentiment, it became harder to stay in the room with every passing minute, more so because there was nothing left to do and he hadn’t bothered to bring anything to keep him entertained with him.

“Hey.” Despite the worries, he tried to not sound too relieved the second Chester marched back in, clearly not happy to see him leaning against the counter. “There’s food for you in the oven.”

“I’m not hungry,“ he snapped back at him and it took Mike a great amount of self-control to not roll his eyes at him or sound to condescending when he explained the rules they’d set upon signing their contracts back on Earth.

“You know Brad is going to be mad if you don’t eat.” And the last thing Mike wanted was another lecture on how important it was that their bodies stayed fit during their journey through space. Or really any lecture coming from Brad if he was completely honest.

“Do I look like I care?” Nevertheless, Chester got up and snatched the plate Mike held out for him right from his hands. “Why are you here anyway? Don’t you have something better to do? Isn’t Anna going to be mad when she finds out one day is missing in your messages to her?”

“She won’t be.” Mike pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath before he decided to not comment further on it. Especially since Chester was now chewing loudly and glaring up at him. “Rob wanted to know if the food’s alright.”

“Great. Now you’re all concerned about the wellbeing of a bunch of fucking carrots.” Slamming his fork down onto the plate, Chester stabbed the remaining food and shoved it into his mouth while Mike clutched the edge of the counter behind him to the point where he felt his fingers were starting to hurt from the pressure.

“Are you done?“, he asked before Chester had the chance to run off again. A question to which he didn’t respond but instead narrowed his eyes and pointed at the empty plate in a swift movement. “Alright. I wanted to talk to you.”

“If it’s about the project, forget it.” Right as Mike sat down, Chester decided to get up and clean the dishes with a calm demeanor that made Mike want to flip the table.

“Chester, please.” His head buried in one hand, Mike pointed at the now empty chair with the other. “You do know that I have problems with the project and not with you, right?”

“Really?” Laughing once, Chester refused to sit down as told but instead leaned against the wall and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Then why did you make me look like an idiot in front of the entire crew, _Captain_?”

“I didn’t.” Another sigh, and even without looking in his direction, Mike could feel Chester’s glare on him. “Look, as your friend I think it’s absolutely genius but as a scientist-”

“That’s a poor excuse.“ Chester cut him off, the compliment clearly not working as expected.

“I had- _have_ the feeling you don’t know how dangerous this is!” Any attempts to keep his voice down were failing at this point and it took Mike more than just a few deep breaths to not jump up and pace the room again. Fighting wouldn’t get his point across, he knew that. But at the same time, he could only hope that reasonable arguments did. “You want to mess with the abilities of a human being. That’s not just crossing a line, that’s straight up ignoring it.”

“Autopsies were once _crossing lines_ as well.” Chester had a point and if this conversation hadn’t been as important as it was, Mike would most certainly pour them both a glass of their disgusting tap water and put one of the sacred dissolvable flavor capsules inside to ponder the history of medicine and ethical codes scientists had to follow. “But we needed it to eventually be able to move forward with medicine and save god knows how many lives with the knowledge we got from it.”

“But those were dead bodies!” And even now, where they had long left the dark ages behind - at least when it came to science - it was still impossible to bring the dead back to life. No matter how much of space they’d explored, how many planets they’d walked, death still remained the ultimate adversary that humanity couldn’t defeat.

“And I can look for someone who actually consents to experiments being done on them.” Chester, however, had a different approach to things.

“Don’t you get it? It’s too dangerous, you don’t know what could happen with that person.” Repeating his words for what felt like the millionth time, Mike started to ask himself if Chester really didn’t understand where his concerns were coming from or if he was simply blinded by his invention to the point where he refused to see any possible negative outcomes.

“Brad has sliced open enough heads to trust him with the surgery.”

“I didn’t mean that.” His head now buried in both hands, Mike thought about a way to reach his friend. “Chester, you know that inventions always end up in the wrong hands and this is something that could mean the end of the world even in the right hands.”

“How much of a world is there left anyway?” When he answered at last, Chester’s voice was unusually quiet, which caused Mike to look up to him once more. And the moment their glances met he understood exactly why Chester was so passionate about this project.

“Even if it’s just bare remains, I don’t want to be the one responsible for wiping it out.” Mike closed his eyes for a moment to think about the home they’d left behind and all their loved ones still stuck in the wastelands. All the little and big inventions that were meant to help humanity but only kept heating the atmosphere to the point where the ecosystem started collapsing. All the little inventions to prevent this from happening. And the big one everyone had put so much hope into. “You won’t convince me to help you, no matter what.”

“This was the first time I really thought I had the solution to Earth’s problems, you know?” Mike wondered if this was the attitude those who had managed to stabilize fusion reactors had had as well.

“You’ll find a better plan.” The ones that got to enjoy a brief moment of victory before their invention that was meant to spare Earth from even more emissions eventually lead to the gruesome death of millions. “Something the entire world will remember you for.”

“There is no _better plan._ ” Mike jolted up the moment he heard Chester use his own words against him, in a tone that made clear what he thought of them. “And you know that.”

Chester could’ve punched him, yelled at him, thrown something at him, but Mike was sure that nothing would’ve had the same effect on him as those simple words. No matter how much Mike denied it, no matter how much he tried to talk Chester out of it, deep down he knew his friend was right.

“There has to be a better one.” With words even Mike himself could barely hear he set to leave the room, unable to look Chester in the eyes.

“There is no better plan,“ Chester repeated quietly as he heard the door close. By now he was running out of ideas on how to convince Mike to help him and Brad. And to make the situation even worse, he didn’t doubt that Mike would tell all his colleagues to not help either as soon as he got the chance. Given he’d always assumed Mike was equally open-minded about expanding the world of science, Chester felt the immense loneliness he carried in his heart ever since he had to leave his family sting just a little more than usual.

With the project he’d poured his heart and soul into ripped to shreds and the ship working as it should, Chester couldn’t think of anything else to do besides wandering through the corridors and rooms. Most of his crewmates should’ve been asleep by now and he’d learned that Joe preferred to have the hours he spent alone in the cockpit for himself. But as he neared their lounge, he could hear muffled voices coming from behind the door that made him stop dead in the track. Brad and Rob were still up, probably playing yet another board game. And as he heard them, but especially Mike, laugh about a joke that hadn’t managed to get through to him, he started backing off slowly. Part of him wanted to join them, know what they were laughing about, but a much bigger part felt like he didn’t belong in such a lighthearted environment. Not at the moment, and certainly not when Mike was sitting next to them, being his best cheerful self.

Out here, where Joe had dimmed the lights and he only heard the sound of the engine running steady was where he belonged. Out here, he could sit in peace and sort the thoughts that were floating through his mind, could reflect on the things that had been said.

The longer he stayed there, the less he felt his body tense whenever he recalled Mike’s words to him. But just as his mind was willing to leave the argument behind and started wandering off to his family, he was forced back into reality by a deafening noise that went through the spaceship, a heartbeat before he was thrown against the wall on the other side of the hallway. And the sound of bones cracking was lost in the all prevailing ringing of sirens.


End file.
